AT&T Researcher: Open Networks 'Are Here to Stay'
Innovation in wireless and 6G is dependent on whether carriers deploy open, cloud-based, disaggregated networks, said Milap Majmundar, director of advanced radio access network technology, standards and spectrum at AT&T Labs, at an RCR Wireless 6G conference Wednesday. Open radio access networks (ORAN) “are here to stay,” he said.
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When 5G was standardized, the ORAN industry “was very much in its infancy,” Majmundar said. “A lot of progress has been made,” and open radios and basebands are now commercially available. “We continue to see a really important role for open RAN and disaggregation principles in continuing to shape 6G standards.”
Standards for 6G probably can’t be developed more quickly, said Mirko Soveri, director of the Mobile Competence Centre at the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). “The definition of an entire mobile system is not an easy job,” he said. “It takes an extremely long time, a lot of work” and research. Standards also require consensus, he said, and in a single week, thousands of documents need to be discussed and revised. “We have a group of a couple of thousand engineers … between all our working groups.”
Majmundar also said that as 6G unfolds, the ability to use AI and machine-learning technology “should be enabled from the get-go.” Carriers need an “integrated framework” for data collection, model training, life-cycle management and network visibility and control, he said.
Some work has been done on sensing in 5G, “but it’s sort of an add-on” and needs to be integrated in networks under 6G, Majmundar added. 6G should also “support a wide range of device types right from the first release,” he said. “We need to be able to clean up how mandatory features are specified and managed in standards.”
Soveri said simplicity is one of ETSI members' biggest demands for 6G. “We don’t want to standardize too many features that later are just not implemented.” Operators also want a 6G voice solution “from Day 1,” he said. “That seems obvious, but it hasn’t been that obvious in previous generations.”